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The newly-appointed US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism is taking his job very seriously by shining a spotlight on the trend of anti-Zionism.

At the annual Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, Carr said, “I will work to eradicate the attempted distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. There is no distinction,” the Jewish New Syndicate (JNS) reported.

“There is a greater rise in new antisemitism that clothes itself as anti-Zionism. The antisemitism of the European street, of the college campus and of those that have embraced the notion that the Jewish people don’t have a right to their homeland,” Carr said.

“Zionism wasn’t born in 1948 or with (Theodor) Herzl or with the First Zionist Congress. Zionism started with Parshat Lech-Lecha (the Torah portion on God’s call in Genesis to Abraham to settle the land of Israel), with Moses and on the banks of the river of Babylon,” he continued. “Anyone who attempts to deny the Jewish religion its basic faith tenets, its rights to a homeland is wading into antisemitism. And I will fight it,” he vowed.

All too often, antisemites use criticism of Israel to stir hatred toward Jews as a race. Anti-Zionism is the term they use to describe opposition to Jewish self-determination in the Land of Israel. Anti-Zionism denounces the State of Israel as illegitimate, even before its establishment in 1948. Anti-Zionism and the rejection of a homeland for the Jewish people has become a coverup for modern-day antisemitism.

Defining Anti-Zionism as antisemitic is an important step in exposing the rancid anti-Israel rhetoric and deep-seated hatred towards the Jewish people. In the face of a resurgence of violent antisemitic attacks in France, President Emmanuel Macron promised in a recent speech to change policing regulations to criminalize anti-Zionism. Physical attacks and racist tweets fueled by the far-right and the growth of antisemitism on the left are increasing. Particularly in left-wing political circles, anti-Zionism and unjustified belligerent criticism of Israel are more and more coming from antisemitic liberal politicians and their followers. Condemning Israel has become their favorite excuse to hate Jews.

Elan Carr is right. It is high time we expose the antisemitic roots of anti-Zionism. Carr, a Jew, a veteran of the Iraqi war, and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, knows what he is talking about.

PHOTO: Blatant acts of antisemitism are today often justified as understandable, if not justifiable, responses to alleged Israeli crimes. (Gershon Elinson/FLASH90)

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